Metaxis - or learning in two places at once

Metaxis (or metaxy) is the word used by Plato to describe the condition of “in-betweenness” that is one of the characteristics of being human. In particular, Plato applied it to spirituality, describing its location as being between the human and the divine.

Metaxis has also been defined as the state of belonging completely and simultaneously to two different autonomous worlds (Linds 2006). So, the notion of humans passing through an interface between the world of ideas and the physical world is over 2,000 years old.

This lecture will argue that the advent of virtual worlds has provided another interface we can now inhabit; that between the virtual and the real. And, particularly, that the notion of in-betweenness becomes significant when virtual worlds are used for education through simulations of real life experiences and activities.